


Reciprocity

by doublejoint



Category: One Piece
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26801146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: Sanji makes strawberry tarts.
Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 6
Kudos: 102





	Reciprocity

The dough is firm under Sanji’s fingers, cold to the touch, but pliant enough for him to shape the edges perfectly. A pinch, a turn, a pull; he’s formed another ridge and then he repeats the sequence; the pie dish scrapes against the counter. The sound is somehow too sharp, as if something’s wrong with the glass, or with his ears, but he can hear more than just the sound of glass on granite, the sound of voices, too sharp and cutting. His left hand won’t move, as if it’s stuck in something, and then he blinks and he’s awake on the couch in the kitchen, his elbow pressed between the cushions, and for a second he thinks it’s because there’s a giant bowl full of dough half on top of him, but then it shifts, moves a hand onto his hip. Zoro, then. The lights are low but still too bright; Sanji squeezes his eyes shut and tries to imagine his hands shaping the dough again and return to that dream.

“No,” Zoro says, too loud, to someone else, and Sanji huffs, rolling over and out from under him, freeing his elbow and angling his face into the back of the couch.

He can still smell Zoro’s soap despite being turned away from him, and a second later Zoro’s arm has dropped over him again, around his stomach. He hears the cushions adjust to Zoro’s repositioning, another distraction from sleep and the dream, and once Sanji’s thinking about distractions he remembers that before he’d fallen asleep he was trying to make a mental list of which knives needed sharpening and what spices he could afford not to stock up on. He can catalogue all of that in the morning, but if he doesn’t hold on then the tart crust--what kind of tart? Had it been strawberry?--will slip away into the back of his mind. They should go to bed properly, instead of sleeping in the kitchen; Sanji should say something to that effect. Or he should tell whoever else is here not to pick the lock on the fridge. He’s awake, after all. The talking has stopped, though, and Zoro pulls the blanket up over them both. It’s pleasantly warm. Sanji’s awake, but not that awake. Yes, there had been strawberries on the counter. On the far side of the ashtray, he thinks, as he slips back into sleep.

* * *

A few hours later, Sanji wakes up with sweat soaking through his shirt, sticking it to his back. Pleasantly warm has turned to cloyingly hot--Zoro generates more heat than the back of a refrigerator, and even if he weren’t a clingy sleeper the couch is too narrow for Sanji to lie very far away from him. Sanji shoves Zoro with the back of his shoulder and he rolls over to the edge of the couch, completely undisturbed. Sanji sighs before maneuvering himself into a sitting position to unbutton and pull off his shirt. He wipes his face with it; it was sweaty anyway. He shouldn’t have let himself fall asleep in his clothes; he should have, tired as he was, made Zoro get up so they could sleep in the actual sleeping quarters. The one thing about this ship that Sanji wishes were different was the lack of actual beds. The hammocks aren’t uncomfortable, but a bed would be nicer, a more attractive prospect of getting into when he’s half asleep and when Zoro wants to fall asleep on top of him. 

Sanji kicks the blanket off his legs; it’s lying mostly on top of Zoro and between them. It’ll have to do. He undoes his belt and pulls it off, placing it with his shirt on top of the couch, and settles back down, now facing Zoro instead of the cushions.

Sanji takes a moment to look at him. Zoro’s face is relaxed, drained of the tension ever-present when he’s awake, the scar over his left eye blurred by the dim light. His hair’s getting a little long, curling up at the ends, not close to the length of his earrings but closer than usual. He spends enough time around Zoro that he doesn’t, shouldn’t, need to look at him like this--but if you see someone all the time, you can forget to look at them. And it’s not like he needs a reason, especially when Zoro can’t make a face back at him or ask him why (though sometimes that’s half the fun). 

As if summoned by Sanji’s thoughts, he rolls half-over again, closer but not all the way on top of Sanji again. Ever the contrarian, that one.

“Guess I’ll look more when you’re awake.”

Zoro says nothing, and, well, Sanji should get back to sleep, too. His body, catching up with the assessment, seems to agree. Sanji lies back down and curls his toes against the couch cushion. He tries to picture his hands back in that tart dream, shaping the dough. He falls asleep grasping at the strands of the memory, but they float away from his fingers like dough in water even as he digs his hands in deeper.

* * *

The next time Sanji wakes up, his feet are fucking freezing. The light coming through the cracked door is dim, but it’s there; it must be early morning by now, too close to the time he needs to be up to fall back asleep for much longer . He rolls over and shoves them into the blankets, and through several layers his feet can feel the heat radiating from Zoro’s ankles. If he could burrow his feet deeper under the blankets and actually touch them, even that guy would probably wake up.

Zoro’s skin is even warmer to the direct touch than it is through the blankets, and two seconds after Sanji stretches out his toes like they’re his hands around a warm mug of tea on a winter island, Zoro flinches away and makes a sound halfway between a groan and a yelp as he rolls away and almost off the couch.

“What the fuck?”

“Good morning,” says Sanji.

Zoro grunts and flops back facedown. Sanji digs his feet into the blanket and finds Zoro’s ankles again; Zoro swears, muffled by the cushion, but doesn’t pull away this time. A second or so later, he lifts his head. His hair looks ridiculous, going every which way; maybe it’s longer than Sanji had thought if it’s long enough for this.

“Why do you look like you’re about to laugh at me?”

“Because I am,” says Sanji.

Zoro makes a sound in the back of his throat and swipes a hand across his face, as if to wipe away anything stuck to it, and then finding nothing, as Sanji snickers, moves his hand over his hair and tries to press it down. After about ten seconds of letting him go at it, completely ineffective, Sanji reaches over and smooths Zoro’s hair down. Zoro’s scowl deepens. He catches Sanji’s hand as he pulls it away, but does nothing, just holds it. He’s still not really awake, probably, but he’s trusting enough of Sanji and of the situation that he hasn’t forced himself into alertness.

He’s still the first one to pull himself up into a sitting position and swing his legs over the edge of the couch, though he’s also the one on the outside. Sanji follows, scooting over next to him and bumping his shoulder.

“You seemed pretty out last night,” Zoro says through a half-yawn. 

“You woke me up,” says Sanji.

Zoro shrugs, leaning a little closer, like he’s about to rest his head on Sanji’s shoulder. 

“You could at least apologize for letting me sleep in my clothes.”

“You went back to sleep anyway,” says Zoro.

He yawns again, his jaw popping, but barely taking his eyes away from Sanji’s face--oh. Sanji relaxes his shoulders, and Zoro does lean his head down.

“You just wanted some alone time, huh?”

He doesn’t say anything. Sanji smiles. It would have been better if he hadn’t slept in his clothes, or on the couch at all, but it is nice to just be here together, to sleep beside him and wake up to as close to their own space as they’ll get. They haven’t had too much time like that lately--and it ebbs and flows, based on what they need to do and what crops up, but sometimes they do have to make it for themselves. Sanji laces his fingers through Zoro’s, and he feels Zoro’s face relax slightly against his shoulder, not like when he’s sleeping but a little closer to that. Sanji wants to call him a dumbass, would shove him away--but. This is okay for a little while longer (though he does need a smoke soon), and there would be no heat in his words. 

* * *

Sanji’s rolled out and shaped hundreds, maybe thousands, of pies and tarts in his handful of years in this kitchen alone; there’s something about the muscle memory and the smell of the dough that’s immensely satisfying, in a way that even the best dreams can’t capture. Pinch, turn, pull; the feeling of the dough under his fingers is better in real life, too. Through the door, he can hear Brook tuning his violin and someone shouting something--Usopp’s voice, and then Luffy’s, rising up over it in argument. They have a few days to the next landfall by Nami’s calculations; they should all enjoy this--being on the ship, having fun, being fucking pirates--as much as they can while it lasts, before it breaks and picks up again afterward. (After all, the goal of all of this is to keep being pirates, just better ones than they are now, the indisputable best; they’re almost living the dream anyway, but they have so much to do.)

The second crust is much the same as the first, and the third the same as the second, the rhythm suited to his hands, the ridges matched in an even pattern around the edge, the way he’d first seen way back so long ago in North Blue when he couldn’t chop vegetables without cutting into his hands. And thinking about vegetables makes him remember to check the beef stew simmering on the stove; it’s coming along nicely for lunch. He lights a cigarette. Still a few minutes until the oven’s hot enough for the crusts; he might as well get started on hulling the strawberries.

He’s about halfway through, with the crusts finally in the oven, when the kitchen door swings open. Zoro, shirtless and with a towel around his neck that doesn’t stop him from dripping with sweat, palm flat on the doorframe. The noise from outside grows louder; Brook is now playing a tune that Sanji sort-of knows but can’t quite place, and Franky’s and Nami’s voices are mixed in with Luffy’s and Usopp’s, a familiar cacophony. Zoro doesn’t say anything, just wipes his forehead with the towel, walks over to the sink and fills a glass of water. He drinks it all down in one go, then refills it. Sanji’s not watching the strawberries anymore; he doesn’t really need to anyway. He can feel the sizes and the leaves in his hands, cut a circle with the knife, separate, and repeat. Zoro drinks the second glass more slowly, and then meets Sanji’s look with his own.

“Sake.” 

Sanji considers not giving him the fridge key, but it’s close enough to lunch that he’s not going to start a useless argument this time. He finishes the strawberry in his hand, wipes his hands on his apron, and digs around in his pocket until he finds the key ring and tosses it to Zoro. His aim’s a little off; the keys curve toward Zoro’s blind side but he catches them in his hand perfectly anyway.

“Don’t stand with the door open. You’ll ruin the custard for the tart.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Zoro says, and true to his word he’s in and out quickly enough to grab two bottles in one hand, the necks fitting between his fingers. 

He sets one down on the bar and twists open the cap of the other with the hand in which he holds it, flicking it off with his thumb. The other bottle, Sanji notes, is probably best served at room temperature, so he’s not planning on drinking it all at once. 

“Give me back the key,” says Sanji. 

He finishes the next strawberry and holds out his hand. Zoro sets the bottle he’s drinking from down on the bar, crosses the distance between them, and bypasses Sanji’s hand to reach under his apron and stick it in his shirt pocket. 

He’s about to grab another strawberry, but Zoro’s still in his space, for once waiting for Sanji to make a move. Cute. His lips are wet; he smells like sweat and alcohol--like himself, basically. Sanji leans in, deliberately slow. See if he’ll wait for it. He does.

“You’re patient today,” Sanji says, just before kissing him.

Zoro scowls against Sanji’s mouth. If he doesn’t want to take it as a compliment, then that’s his problem.

**Author's Note:**

> For those interested, I used [this tart recipe](https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/strawberry-tarts-recipe-1953858) and [this crust](https://www.thekitchenmccabe.com/2013/11/23/how-to-make-a-simple-ripple-edged-pie-crust/) as references, though I haven't actually tried making either myself.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
